Lab 050: Gold Medal Physics
About This Lab
The Winter Olympics are in full swing and we couldn’t be more excited to get into these cold weather sports. Shaun White, the great, says he’s retiring! Can you believe it? Nathan Chen, America’s figure skating sweetheart is in the limelight! And what about curling? Titi is convinced this is the sport for her.
This week we talked to Sophia Nimphius about the physics of the Winter Olympic sports.
We took a brief tour of some of our favorite sports!
Curling
Curling
Curling may look like sweeping mania, but there’s a lot of science behind this sport. In Curling, two teams of four people are trying to push a 44-pound stone across a sheet of ice towards a bullseye, or "house". Two people on each team use brooms to smooth out the ice right in front of a stone, which can dramatically affect the speed and spin of the stone.
Entering from stage right…our physics friend FRICTION!
Friction isn't unique to curling, though. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Keep this concept front of mind and you’ll notice just how much friction plays a role in many of the sports we discussed!
Ski Jumping
Dr. Nimphius and Titi talked about ski jumping, highlighting the role of friction (ski & snow) and aerodynamics for a gold medal-worthy performance.
Friction between skis & surface
Ski wax to adjust the coefficient of friction
Shape for maximum speed (minimizing friction)
Figure Skating, Speed Skating, and Luge!!
Todd Trapini, Pexels
An ice skater is spinning on the tip of her skate with her arms extended. Her angular momentum is conserved because the net torque on her is negligibly small. (b) Her rate of spin increases greatly when she pulls in her arms, decreasing her moment of inertia. The work she does to pull in her arms results in an increase in rotational kinetic energy. Source: Lumen Learning Course
Guest Expert
Dr. Sophia Nimphius is the Professor of Human Performance at Edith Cowan University (ECU) and High Performance Women’s Sport Science Coordinator for Softball Australia.
Transcript
You can read the transcript for this lab and all the others, too!